Just read what my credit card company is going to do to me!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wall*e2008]

I just saw a story on the news about this tonight, this woman had a small payment and Chase is changing her rate and now her payment is going to be $1200/mo. I'm sure there is more to the story than I remember, Anyway, a bankruptcy attorney they interviewed said that about 90% of people who file bankruptcy have a least one Chase card (her words, not mine).

Maybe you could take out a Home Equity loan to pay it off. Not a great alternative but better than getting stuck with a higher rate. It's really a bad situation for many people (not that that makes you feel better). Good luck!!

Oh, I just noticed you are from GA. It was on Fox5 news if you are interested in the story.

Since the payments are going to be 5% that means she owes Chase $24K.

 

[Blue.Fairy2]

ignore me i am sleepy. lol

 

[P.I. Squirrel]

This is due, in large part on our government. The OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) has begun cracking down on credit card companies for various reasons. In response, virtually ALL of the credit card companies are raising the minimum payment required.

See the ABC News story here.

 

[dvcgirl]

We'll I can see your point, but I am not going to put off a family vacation unless I just have to. And you never know, I may just have to. I am going to bed now, I promise!

If I had a nickel for each and every response like this.....well, I'd be wealthy beyond my wildest dreams. And yet so many are still looking at our economy and wondering...."how did this happen?.....how did we get here?".

Sigh.....this is just one little board in the zillions like it on the web. In 2050 I think we're going to have a lot of bitter 50 year olds who wish that their parents (now living in their spare bedrooms) had invested a bit more and skipped the yearly vacation to Disney or (fill in the blank).

 

[disneysteve]

Since the payments are going to be 5% that means she owes Chase $24K.

Excuse me?

5% of $8,000 is $400

5% of $24,000 is $1,200

 

[wall*e2008]

Excuse me?

5% of $8,000 is $400

5% of $24,000 is $1,200

I can do math. The person who I quoted said a persons payment with case went up to $1200.

 

[Minnie Lor]

I don't think the OP was saying that she was considering bankruptcy just that Chase made that stupid suggestion.

I don't think $8000 on a CC that she is making regular and consistent payments on iis reason to cancel a trip in the future. If she was going every other month - maybe. I owe on my house. I make regular and constistent payments and I plan on going on a trip this year and maybe next year.

I personally like Dave Ramsey - I'm a fan. I think people need to get their finances in order but not everyone works that way. Obviously, they were doing fine but Chase changed the rules in the middle of the game. Not playing nice.

OP - Chase raised my interest rate. I use my card every month and I pay it off every month. I've never carried a balance but still they decided to raise my interest rate. They're going after everyone and all the CC companies are getting nasty about it. I'd call them back with an offer to send in $20 more ($180).

 

[disneysteve]

I can do math. The person who I quoted said a persons payment with case went up to $1200.

My apologies. I totally missed the object there.

 

[ctinct]

The change in absolute minimum payments has been around for quite a while. The story referenced in an earlier post is from 2005. All those increases have already occurred.

What Chase seems to be doing here, judging from the posts on another board I follow, is raising the minimum payment on very low balance transfer rates. I believe the op said Chase gave this as the reason they were raising her minimum. They can't make much money off of a 0% or 2.99% balance, so they want to get rid of those customers as quickly as possible. Since many of these low interest transfers were for the life of the balance, Chase CAN'T change the rate, so they are raising the minimum payment, and like the op said, the customer CAN'T opt out.

I can see several problems with this. Some people transferred money to low interest accounts to get away from onerous interest rates. There are a lot of people living close to the bone now, because of job loss or other life circumstances. Maybe they can make the payment now, but to raise it by 150% will put them over the edge. There have been times I would have been in serious trouble if this had happened to me.

The other situation I see a problem with is people who moved a lot of their debt over to Chase, thinking they were being smart. Not all that long ago there were no or very low balance transfer fees, and Chase gives some people some very high credit limits. My own limit is obscene. (They've been cutting those lately, too, though.) Anyhow, suppose you moved a new car purchase and some other debt over to them at 0%. The minimum payment would have been $600 to start, and as long as you kept paying an average of $500 over 5 years, your car payment and other debt would be retired in 5 years. Now suddenly, instead of your $600 payment, the payment would be $1500 for the initial $30,000. Of course it would decrease as your balance goes down, but that's a huge increase. I think that would be tough for a lot of families, even if they aren't on the edge....and remember, these people thought they were doing the smart thing financially by lowering their rate, and now the game has been changed.

Granted, if people had read the terms of service, they might have noticed that nowhere does it say 2% will always be the minimum. But even when the government mandated a change, which for most people was not very big, they gave several months warning. I just don't know how some people will manage. Don't worry about Chase though. If they lose money through people defaulting, they can just raise their other customer's rates a few more percentage points, as long as they do it before the new credit card rules take effect.

 

[SandrA9810]

yeah, it was a few years ago that rules changed a bit. And that the user had to pay a certain percentage in the minimum payment. Originally CC would create a min payment that was less than the finance charges. So not only were you not paying off the balance, it was going up because the finance charges were being tacked on.

They finally changed it so your min payment was enough to cover the finance charges and about 1-2% of the actual balance. It increased our payments by like 15$ or so when this took effect on some of our larger balances. Of course when we were paying the same amount every month, 150$, the min went down. So that meant a few dollars more was going towards the balance rather than the finance charges.

But I can see how changing from 2% to 5% could impact you quite a bit. And 240$ is a lot of money each month to come up with. If anything like that happened to us, we'd be hurting big time. And I wish it was easy as saying getting a part time weekend job, but it's not that easy. Especially if there was issue of kids. And people do need thier rest you can't work 7 days a week without getting burned out in a couple of weeks. And then there's still taxes to take out on top of it. You're talking an extra week's worth of income just to cover it.
I hope you can find something that'll work for you. And if this isn't your only CC, can you go back to the bare min on the other cards to put towards this one?? At least you'll have it paid off faster.

 

[NancyIL]

I don't think the OP was saying that she was considering bankruptcy just that Chase made that stupid suggestion.

I don't think $8000 on a CC that she is making regular and consistent payments on iis reason to cancel a trip in the future. If she was going every other month - maybe. I owe on my house. I make regular and constistent payments and I plan on going on a trip this year and maybe next year.

There's a difference between mortgage debt and credit card debt. Everyone needs a place to live - whether you have a mortgage or pay rent. On the other hand, many of the things purchased with credit cards are consumable items - like food, entertainment, and travel. I can understand the OP's anger about the minimum payments more than doubling, and I would be unhappy, too. I would also do whatever it took to cut expenses and increase income, including reevaluating vacation plans. Trip memories are wonderful, but you don't have to go to WDW to enjoy a getaway with your family.

 

[sk!mom]

We'll I can see your point, but I am not going to put off a family vacation unless I just have to. And you never know, I may just have to. I am going to bed now, I promise!

So you're discussing bankruptcy while planning a vacation...What's wrong with this picture??

I'm sorry, but seriously an $8000 debt could be taken care of by selling a second car or working a second job for a short time. If you're considering bankruptcy because the Chase debt is only the tip of the iceberg, then you need to take a step back and reorder your priorities. You're living on the edge! I'm scared for you!

 

[dopeyone]

I went through the BBB when Chase decided to raise my APR by over 10% on 2 seperate cards. I always paid on time and always paid more than the min. I thought this extremely unfair, especially after we (taxpayers) just bailed them out.
Anyhow, after I reported them to the BBB they decided to offer me option 1: Close my accounts, get my old rates back and continue paying until paid off. Option 2: keep accounts open get old rates back for 1 year then they could raise them!
I took option 1. Before going to the BBB, I called and spoke to countless managers to no avail, all I wanted were my old rates back and to be done with them. It took me going through the BBB to get that. Bad business!

 

[CLR4321]

Bank of America/FIA Card Services did that to me a couple of years ago for no reason too. It was painful at the time to go from $60 a month payments to $140 a month. Credit card companies are tightening up anywhere they can to make more money and to get people to pay more of their debts off faster.
I wish you the best in the situation. Perhaps you can take out a loan to cover it or find a new card and do a balance transfer. Good luck!

 

[CLR4321]

I went through the BBB when Chase decided to raise my APR by over 10% on 2 seperate cards. I always paid on time and always paid more than the min. I thought this extremely unfair, especially after we (taxpayers) just bailed them out.

Try going from a 7.9% FIXED rate to 21.99%! I was in the same shoes as you, except I never got the supposed opt-out notice they sent....I moved right at the same time they claimed to have sent it. Luckily I was able to transfer the balance.

 

[dopeyone]

Try going from a 7.9% FIXED rate to 21.99%! I was in the same shoes as you, except I never got the supposed opt-out notice they sent....I moved right at the same time they claimed to have sent it. Luckily I was able to transfer the balance.

That's exactly what they were doing to me. I told them i never saw the opt out letter. I think I got lucky with reporting to the BBB, chase was getting a lot of bad publicity at the time.

 

[goopysolelady]

If I had a nickel for each and every response like this.....well, I'd be wealthy beyond my wildest dreams. And yet so many are still looking at our economy and wondering...."how did this happen?.....how did we get here?".

Sigh.....this is just one little board in the zillions like it on the web. In 2050 I think we're going to have a lot of bitter 50 year olds who wish that their parents (now living in their spare bedrooms) had invested a bit more and skipped the yearly vacation to Disney or (fill in the blank).

EXCUSE ME !!!!!!! This "bitter 50 year old ... actually 58 year old" would like to say something. We HAVE "invested a bit more" ... have you checked the stock market lately? We HAVE skipped Disney vacations when money was tight and done a weekend at "fill in the blank" but ya know what? I wouldn't trade those family memories for anything; they mean more to all of us than the $20,000 - $30,000 whatever ... we'd have in the bank (which would now be probably $5,000 thanks to Wall Street) had we skipped the FEW Disney trips we've made over the last 30 years.
Would you like to know how ... and why ...our credit card balance grew? Our 28 year old son-in-law DIED after an 18 month illness. His insurance went into effect 2 weeks after he became ill (after being on a job for 3 months he'd worked towards the past 8 years) which meant about $25,000.00 in medical bills to start with! THEN, after insurance coverage began there were co-insurance deductables; yearly deductable; prescription co-pays; non-covered charges; gas and meals to and from doctors/hospitals; MONTHLY INSURANCE PREMIUMS of $450.00 after he lost his job, regular monthly bills that had to be paid with my daughters salary ... and his FUNERAL.
Our daughter, now a 26 year old widow, needed help; son-in-laws parents offered NOTHING. Her TWO credit cards maxed out FAST ... a year ago OUR credit card interest was very, VERY reasonable ... not anymore. CHASE has also pulled the same stunt with us and YES I am angry! Our home equity loan is in the works and this "bitter 50 year old" is just thankful DH and I were able to help our daughter during very trying times.

 

[kydisneyfans]

My parents received the same 2 to 5% change on their CC the same day we received our $150 rewards check from the same company. We have 3 CC accounts through Chase, no terms have changed, and we carry 0 balances on all. We also have a vehicle loan and home equity loan though Chase, so they are making the money from us on those loans.

We had 10K in CC debt directly after relocating to KY. We devised a 5 year plan to get out 100%, we hunkered down and got it done in 3 years. That meant basic cable, driving older vehicles, working extra, and making sacrifices. The Disney trip went from staying onsite to offsite.

The change to 5% may be a blessing in disguise.

 

[kacaju]

What Chase seems to be doing here, judging from the posts on another board I follow, is raising the minimum payment on very low balance transfer rates. I believe the op said Chase gave this as the reason they were raising her minimum. They can't make much money off of a 0% or 2.99% balance, so they want to get rid of those customers as quickly as possible. Since many of these low interest transfers were for the life of the balance, Chase CAN'T change the rate, so they are raising the minimum payment, and like the op said, the customer CAN'T opt out.

Well maybe Chase should have thought of this before THEY send out the 0% and 2.99% checks!!
We have two Chase cards and I swear we get at least two letters a month (one for each card) with those checks in them.

 

[dvcgirl]

EXCUSE ME !!!!!!! This "bitter 50 year old ... actually 58 year old" would like to say something. We HAVE "invested a bit more" ... have you checked the stock market lately? We HAVE skipped Disney vacations when money was tight and done a weekend at "fill in the blank" but ya know what? I wouldn't trade those family memories for anything; they mean more to all of us than the $20,000 - $30,000 whatever ... we'd have in the bank (which would now be probably $5,000 thanks to Wall Street) had we skipped the FEW Disney trips we've made over the last 30 years.
Would you like to know how ... and why ...our credit card balance grew? Our 28 year old son-in-law DIED after an 18 month illness. His insurance went into effect 2 weeks after he became ill (after being on a job for 3 months he'd worked towards the past 8 years) which meant about $25,000.00 in medical bills to start with! THEN, after insurance coverage began there were co-insurance deductables; yearly deductable; prescription co-pays; non-covered charges; gas and meals to and from doctors/hospitals; MONTHLY INSURANCE PREMIUMS of $450.00 after he lost his job, regular monthly bills that had to be paid with my daughters salary ... and his FUNERAL.
Our daughter, now a 26 year old widow, needed help; son-in-laws parents offered NOTHING. Her TWO credit cards maxed out FAST ... a year ago OUR credit card interest was very, VERY reasonable ... not anymore. CHASE has also pulled the same stunt with us and YES I am angry! Our home equity loan is in the works and this "bitter 50 year old" is just thankful DH and I were able to help our daughter during very trying times.

Well, I'm very sorry that your family was hit with a perfect storm of events. That's a terrible and sad set of events.

However, I was referring specifically to the OP and the many other posts that we see like hers. Ones where there are thousands (sometimes tens of thousands) in consumer CC debt and yet there's almost always a trip to Disney in the works, one that has just been taken. It doesn't even faze me anymore. For Pete's sake, if your entire financial world is flipped upside down by seeing your minimum CC payment go from 2% to 5% and you're contemplating bankruptcy....that alone shows severe financial stress.

I'm really sorry, but trips to Walt Disney World don't belong in that world. That's not even being judgmental in my opinion, just a good hard look at the facts.